Fire and Ice
by Impersonating-an-entity
Summary: rated for suicide. Inspired by the book Kerosene. Touya's odd solace.
1. Fire and Ice

Disclaimer: not mine

Warning: suicide, depression, self-mutilation.... weirdness 0.0

I stared into the fire's sapphire depths; the beautiful blue base of the fire, growing into crimson and tiger-orange flames, tapering into gold at the end. The flames were alive, dancing, flowing, weaving... I sat there, my arms resting in my lap, hands clasped, my body, for once, completely relaxed, as the fire dance reflected in my eyes, which were glazed over, in wonder, in some sort of (deranged, perhaps?) joy.

Fire, my antithesis... It was so unlike me, such a delightful opposite... Fire had always enchanted me. Fire was beautiful, alive, vibrant, powerful, pure, full of wonder, surprise, excitement. It was everything I wasn't. I was ugly, a body with no soul, dull, weak, toxic, monotonous, routine, boring... In short, Fire was perfect... I was everything that could make me not perfect.

Odd, something that I loved so much could be so unlike me. Strange, that something so dear to me could burn me far worse than any normal youkai, or even ningen. Perplexing, that I should love that which I could never have. Ghastly, that I should be able to create it, watch it, admire it, but never, never touch.

I used to touch it... hold it, though it would never stay in my hands. Bathe in it, even. But Jin hated it. Hated seeing me with burns on my hands, my face. I stopped, because he was like fire in flesh. He mastered wind, but... he was always fire to me.

Restless, beautiful, strong... He was everything I saw in fire. Everything I longed to see in myself, but never found. He didn't like it when I touched the fire. So I stopped. "Don't be playin' with fire!" he said. It was the day I stopped talking to him. Because talking to him, even being around him, was playing with fire.

But I still watched it. I still watched him. I longed for fire so desperately...

He left, not long after I stopped talking to him. He was the only thing stopping me.

My 'playing with fire' increased. I needed to watch it more. I needed the burn of it again. Needed it to purify me. I began burning myself again.

By this point, I had not only gotten used to the pain, I enjoyed it. I discovered different acids I could pour on myself to cause a most delightful burning sensation when I couldn't use fire. But it wasn't the same. I discovered kerosene, wax, oil... wonderfully flammable substances. I liked to pour such things in my palm and watch the fire, hold it in my hand like that.

Jin was gone. The Shinobi sect was broken and spread far and wide. I had no more food, no real home. So I decided.

I found an old, deserted building. I poured kerosene in the halls, gunpowder, all sorts of things. I poured the kerosene over my body, all over. I took a match, looking at it carefully.

I could change my mind. I didn't want to. I wanted the peace, strength, beauty, purity... that only burning could give. I struck the match, watching as the head caught light in a flash of white, an acrid chemical smell, and then the fire turned golden as it moved down the wood of the match. I tossed it into a large puddle of kerosene. The fire spread immediately.

It devoured the building quickly. I heard timbers cracking around me. I stared at the fire, watching it in my usual sense of wonder, my flame-induced Nirvana. The fire spread to me. I shuddered, as the flame raced along my body.

The last minute, when I had abandoned myself, I thought I heard Jin's voice. "Don't be playin' with fire!" Too late.

"The old mill house burned down a couple days ago. Heard it lit in a flash, and was gone after only a short time."

"Well, the old building was an accident waiting to happen. At least now it's gone."

"Yeah, but I wonder how it caught?"

"I don't know. At least no one was in it."

"Well, we don't know that, right? The forensics and arson police said there was nothing left to be able to tell."

"The place has been abandoned for years, and no one was squatting there, the police had checked it for squatters only the day before."

"I suppose..."

"Ow!"

"I told you not to pick the flowers around the remains of the old mill house!"

"But they're so much more beautiful, and bright and colorful than the other flowers!"

"Yes, but they're like fire – pretty to the eye, but awful to the touch. They've got poison in them that'll raise sores that look like burns, and thorns that secrete more of such poison."

"The fire patch? They say it's haunted. They say a young man sits there, staring into a ghostly fire some nights, and he just watches the fire. They say he burns himself, and hisses and shakes when the fire touches him, but burns himself anyway. They say the man he loved left him."

They say a lot of things about me. But who can know the truth? For the dead don't speak truth nor lies.


	2. Epilogue

Botan came by, one day, to my fire patch. "Touya, you should leave this place. You've been here half a century!"

I shrugged. "So?"

"Touya! Don't you want peace! You can go to the Reikai with me. You have a place in heaven; they're just waiting for you. If you don't come soon, they'll give it to someone else!" She yelled, exasperated. We'd had this conversation before.

I shrugged again. "Let them fill it… I am at peace…."

"Then why won't you LEAVE?!"

"I won't be at peace anywhere else…" I said, looking at Botan resolutely, blankly.

Botan sighed… "I'll see you in a minute, Touya," she said, turning and taking to the air on her oar.

I sat down, calmly conjuring a fire. I stared at it, as I had in my life, letting it consume me, though not in the way I'd let it at my death. My hand stretched towards it, without my thought's command.

"Stop it!" Yusuke yelled, tumbling to the ground from the air. So, that's why Botan had left…. She was back, looking at me in concern, just as before.

I yanked my hand back after a moment of hesitation. I turned to look at Yusuke, letting the fire wink out. If I hadn't, it would have distracted me, and it wouldn't do to be rude.

I smiled faintly. "Hello, Yusuke… 'been a while. I haven't seen you since the Makai Bujutsukai, right?"

He nodded with a sigh. "Touya, why are you still here?"

I shrugged for the umpteenth time.

"Come on! Touya, don't you-?!"

"No. Thank you, but no. All I want is to stay here. Is that so much to ask?" I asked, cutting him off.

He sighed again. "No, it's just that…"

It occurred to me that, at least since my death, the people I talked to were always sighing, and I was constantly shrugging. I wondered why that was.

"I really am fine here," I said, trying to reassure them.

They left after a while. I knew they'd only given up temporarily, but that didn't matter. I set another fire, delighting, as always, in its warmth, beauty and vivacity.

* * *

I awoke (which is a figurative term, since I'm never really asleep… ghosts don't sleep, for whatever reason) to here the sound of fabric fluttering in the wind, and an Irish accent singing a familiar song. In a moment, I knew it was Jin.

I flit up into the sky, enjoying the ability to fly as he did, now that I was disembodied. He flew right through me and did something like a tumble and a flip in the air, dropping in altitude slightly. He whirled, eyes wide and confused. I don't think he could see me, but he had felt something.

I stared at him for a minute, and then slowly drifted back to the ground. He hovered in the air a short time; then, he flew to the ground as well, landing perfectly on his feet, as he always did. "Touya…?" he murmured, exploring what I had come to think of as my clearing. He picked one of the flowers and winced, dropping it and suckling his thumb for a minute.

His nose twitched, as he found the remains of the millhouse I'd lit, and I assumed he was sniffing the scent of the burn. Most of the scent had faded, but Jin's nose was amazingly strong.

He looked around, senses clearly attuned and aware. "Come out, Touya. I know yer here…. Somewhere…" He called, muttering the last word. He looked around, some more, as I walked up to him. I cautiously put my hand on his should, and he straightened rapidly. I pulled my hand away, as he whirled.

"Got ye'-! Eh? Well where'd ye go? Touya, this ain't funny!" He called out once more, staring straight through me.

"Jin, I'm right here…" I murmured.

His ears wiggled, as he strained to catch my words. Even though I was close, I'd spoken so softly, that he seemed to have a hard time hearing.

"Where?"

"Here," I said, a little louder.

He stepped forward, right into me, again. This time, I elt it too.

It was… unsettling, to say the least. Liquid ice and fire poured through me, but not the ice I'd mastered, nor the fire I'd befriended. This was altogether different.

We jumped out of each other, each of us gasping. "Touya, what in hell is goin' on?" Jin asked between breaths.

"Why did that happen?" I asked no one, and Jin spun again to look at me – through me. But after a minute, they focused.

"Oh meh' God… Touya…. Yer… not…" Jin struggled. I supplied him with the words.

"I'm dead."

"How did tha' happen-?! Yeh…" I guess it must have clicked to him, all of a sudden. "You set a buildin' on fire and let the fire kill ye! Didn' ye?" He yelled, looking upset, angry.

I nodded, and Jin squinted. "Didn' ye?" he asked again, a little more softly, but still with anger present.

"Yes… No one got hurt though," I murmured, afraid of his anger. He'd told me…

"Except **you**! Yer the important thing!" he yelled.

"Important?" I laughed softly. "I've never been important, not in my entire life, and not in my death," I said, sure of myself.

Jin practically exploded. "Yeah, yeh're!"

"Not important enough for you to stay," I said.

Jin stared at me, or at least, I think he did. The fact that I'm not entirely sure he could see me very well makes it hard to know. "Touya… Yeh weren' even talkin' ta' me. I didn' think yeh wan'ned me teh' stay."

"That's because you told me not to play with fire."

"What?! You stopped talkin' ta me over THA'! An' besides, obviously yeh didn' let it stop yeh! Yeh went an' got yerself killed 'cuz yeh let a fire get out of control!"

"You're fire… and you wanted me to leave fire alone, so… I stopped while you were there, but when you left, I had to burn. And it didn't get out of control. It did exactly what I wanted it to," I explained calmly.

Jin gaped a moment, digesting all this for a moment. "But I'm a WIN' MASTER!" he yelled suddenly. "Not FIRE! An' whadda' yeh mean 'it did e'zactly wha' yeh wan'ned it ta'?"

I shrugged. "Talking to you feels just like playing with fire. And you're just like fire… everything I wish I were. I wanted the fire to take me. I wanted to end it. There was nothing left for me, when you left."

Jin stood in shock for another few moments, now trying to stomach this new development. "Ye killed yerself?" it seemed he wanted to clarify.

"Yes."

"Be'cuz'a me? 'Cuz I left yeh?"

I stared at him for a few minutes, and then let my gaze fall to the ground. "Yes…" I mumbled.

"Touya, I…I woulda' stayed… If I'd…known tha' yeh'd…"

"It doesn't matter now," I murmured.

Jin stepped back like I'd struck at him. He slumped to his knees, his hands in his lap. "Touya, I'm so sorry… Touya, I'm SO sorry…" he said, and I saw tears in his eyes.

I knelt down before him. "Jin… It's not your fault."

"Yeah, it is!" and all of a sudden he started sobbing.

It was my turn to be confused. "Jin, stop it! Don't! It's not your fault!" I felt dizzy, like my world was falling apart. My beautiful, strong, lively Jin was on his knees, sobbing for a crime he wasn't responsible for.

He kept claiming it was, I kept denying it and begging him to stop. After a while, he did. We were silent for a long time.

"Touya… I love yeh. When yeh stopped talkin' a me… I thought I was gonna die. I thought yeh hated me. I tried ta kill meh'self, five diff'ren' times. So… do yeh love me?" he asked shyly, glancing at me.

I looked up at him in surprise and wonder. "You… love… me? You love ME? Are you sure? I mean, I'm…"

"Yeah, I'm sure; I love yeh. But do yeh..?"

"Of course I do! I killed myself for you, remember?"

Jin winced. "Not one a' yer bes' decisions, though I suppose I should be flattered…"

I sighed. "I missed you."

"An' I missed yeh…" he said shyly.

* * *

Jin fell asleep so I… did whatever you call it when ghosts try to sleep. When I awoke, Jin was cradling me in his arms. His body lay some several feet away. His face was blue-ish. "Jin?! How come we're not getting that… feeling? Why is your body over there?" I asked uncomprehendingly.

"Ye didn' think I'd leave yeh be alone in death, did yeh?" he said, smiling a bit weakly.

I sat up, looking again at his body. "How did your face get that blue color though? What did you do to yourself?" I asked, glad that his ghost face was not the same blue as his body's. He looked as he always had.

"A poison I used did it," he said.

I looked at him worriedly. "Jin, you… Please tell me it was painless…"

He shrugged. "T'was only fer a few minutes. It weren't as bad as when yeh passed through meh. And I couldn' fersake getting' ta touch yeh. Now I can, it dun' hurt either of us," he murmured, tugging me against him protectively.

I buried my face in his chest, crying. "I can't believe you… I love you! No one's ever… something like that… for ME!" I muttered, mixing up and breaking up my words.

* * *

The next time Botan came, she looked startled. When she asked us if we were ready to leave at last, I looked at Jin and took his hand in mine, almost fearful. It was unknown – I knew the 'fire patch.' I didn't know this next step. Jin smiled, gave my hand a squeeze, and we stepped forward, ready to face anything, if together.

I never needed fire again. I had all the fire I could want, and it, He, wanted me.

* * *

"Thank God we got here… You were right, this stuff does miracles!"

"I told you! The plants here in the fire patch are almost magickal. They can heal anything. Like aloe, except way better, and much more beautiful!"

"Yes! I wonder why it's called 'fire patch' though?"

"Maybe because that plants are so brightly colored?"

"I don't know…"

* * *

"Oh, man, no show! The old man was right; the ghost really is gone!"

"So! That's a good thing, it means the ghost is finally happy! Can't you feel it? Good vibes, man, good vibes!"

* * *

Botan recently told me that fire patch became a favorite place for marriages to take place, and that people said any couple married there would never separate. I just looked at Jin, and we both laughed. Botan had been right before – I wasn't at peace. But I wouldn't have been in peace anywhere. Not until I found Jin. 


End file.
